


In Your Darkest Hour

by YourBones



Category: Watchmen (2009), Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: 1980s, Adrian Veidt - Freeform, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Anger, Angst, Comic, Complicated Relationships, Crime Fighting, Crimebusters Era, Crimes & Criminals, Crying, DC Comics References, Dan Dreiberg - Freeform, Disillusioned, Don't Judge, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Dysfunctional Relationships, Embarrassment, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Established Relationship, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, F/M, Graphic Novel, Grief/Mourning, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, Jackie Earle Hayley, Keene Act, Matthew Goode - Freeform, Minor Violence, Minutemen Era, New York City, Nite Owl II - Freeform, Non-Consensual Touching, Nostalgia, Ozymandias - Freeform, POV Third Person, Patrick Wilson - Freeform, Post-Keene, Pre-Keene, Rape/Non-con Elements, Resentment, Romance, Rorschach Feels, Sad, Silk Spectre II - Freeform, Snyderverse - Freeform, Strippers & Strip Clubs, Stripping, Superheroes, Swearing, The Comedian - Freeform, Veidt Enterprises, Violence, Watchmen - Freeform, Watchmen 2009, Watchmen References, Zach Snyder - Freeform, rorschach - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 23:41:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29498244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourBones/pseuds/YourBones
Summary: Snippets centered on the relationship between Adrian Veidt and the youngest female member of the Watchmen.
Relationships: Adrian Veidt/Original Characters, Adrian Veidt/Original Female Character
Kudos: 3





	In Your Darkest Hour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This OC has been swimming around in my head since 2010. Just needed to get her down in writing.

"You're kidding."

Neon flickers across Adrian's perturbed face, his head practically spinning as he reads the illuminated, obnoxious signs that tower over one another. They cram the marquee atop the tall, dingy old nightclub to the point of near suffocation.

_Live XXXX Acts, Live Nude Shows Every Night, Peep Land, XXX New Films Every Week, Stripteases, Live XXXX Nude Girls on Stage!_

Red light from the flashing ads shimmer on the damp pavement and the night air reeks of trash from a nearby alley and cigarette smoke. The neighborhood is a slum. Curved neon signs, formed into exaggerated breasts and women's lips, burn purple through the dark around tacky, cursive words: _The Cat Club._

The blond turns back to Rorschach and Dan when he doesn't get an answer. His face flushes. "You're... not kidding."

"Wish I was," Dan says, hands shoved into the pockets of his brown trench coat. He shrugs. "Alex is pretty weird about it, so..."

"Could get ugly," Rorschach adds gruffly when Dan trails off. 

"We should be as gentle about this as possible," Dan offers. "She'll be upset. She and The Comedian were close."

"And you think this is a good idea?" Adrian says, a fair brow quirked. "The last time Alex and I saw each other... it was hostile, to say the least."

Dan offers him an encouraging, faint smile. "It'll help to have you here."

—

The Cat Club is uncomfortably warm.

Every inch of the place is smothered in gold, black and mirrors. The thick air stinks of tequila, tobacco and sex. Poles and chains run from ceiling to table at the booths that are squished into every corner.

The place is packed. The bar is brimming with people shoving mixed nuts into their faces. Others are drinking, dicing and snorting lines, and arranging for late-night hookups. Some girls dance on the bar top.

Fat, greasy, balding Wall Street businessmen—old and unfaithful—sit huddled in their pompous circles on the main floor, laughing and gulping down shots, waving their green bills at the patient, topless dancers that pretend to enjoy their company.

A red-haired dancer, her breasts adorned with black nipple tassels, dances on the main stage to Jimi Hendrix's _Foxey Lady._ She gets on her knees, shaking her ass to the slick guitar riffs as they blare through the speakers. Countless sweaty men in disheveled suits crowd around the pit by the pole, throwing singles at her.

Adrian sighs deeply through his nose. He can feel the spilled alcohol on the dated black carpet sticking to the bottom of his black leather shoes. He looks away from the stage, down to the bottom of his shoe, and side-eyes Dan.

"Nice place," he mutters.

Dan sighs and says, "We just need to find her before anyone else does." 

The three men look drastically out of place, between Rorschach's mask and Dan's rain-slick glasses to Adrian's famous visage. They split up to look through the pulsing crowds, but between the three of them, they can't find the young woman anywhere.

They reconvene at the back of the club.

Dan glances at his wristwatch. "She's normally waitressing on Saturdays and she should be getting off now. At least, that's what she's told me."

"You've never been here before?" Adrian asks.

"Never," Dan says, uneasy. "Like I said, she gets weird about it. Rorschach's the only one who's seen her. She never told me this was the place she worked."

Adrian shoots an accusatory look to the vigilante on his right.

"Patrol this neighborhood often," Rorschach's mask shifts as he mutters, "flashes her tits outside sometimes."

"Christ," Adrian exhales, pinching the bridge of his nose, exasperated.

"I don't see her," Dan says, eyes scanning the crowd again. "I don't know where she is."

Rorschach says over the music to his comrades, "Back of the house." 

The masked vigilante moves to storm backstage—clearly not caring that two hulking bouncers stand guard at the beat-up black doors.

The redhead exits the stage with a big smile on her face from a successful performance. Hendrix's sensual guitars distort into the heavy, opening drum beat of Blondie's _Heart of Glass_. The DJ's muffled voice booms over the speakers, drawling out the next performer's name with charisma. 

" _Please welcome to the main stage, the one, the only, Lexie_."

The three men freeze as a symphony of sleazy, wanton cat-calls erupt throughout the sordid club. As the disco-infused rhythm rolls through the audience, a young woman struts onto the main stage.

She's barely dressed—a see-through, gold-plated bralette and black g-string adorn her lithe frame. Her despondent, dark eyes are smeared with gold. Her nude lips muster a fake smile, exuding confidence to pacify the men howling at her like salivating dogs. 

"Found the kid," Rorschach mutters dryly.

Dan sighs deeply. "Wow."

Adrian just gawks.

The young woman grabs the cold pole in time with the explosive drums, swinging herself around to the front and up. She twirls and lets her head tip back, pale blond locks hanging mid-air as she spins up farther, then back down, spreading her legs for the audience. Her womanhood is met with drunken cheers.

" _In between, what I find is pleasing and I'm feeling fine. Love is so confusing, there's no peace of mind. If I fear I'm losing you it's just no good, you teasing like you do_..."

She spins back around so she's standing upright, taking the hanging gold chains from the ceiling and twirling them around her body as she dances. She rides the chains down to her haunches, shaking her ass, and goes back up, ripping off her gold-plated bralette. She exposes her bare breasts to the club.

Cat-calls and whistles erupt across the club.

She pushes through the humiliation and kneads her breasts between her slender fingers, toying with her nipples as she dances.

The disco ball that presides high over the club spins. Red lights flicker over Alex's face as the club's strobes pulse in time with the song.

She shakes her chest and returns to the pole, her eyes glassy as she swings back into the air, spinning around the pole like she owns it. She ends the move with a split on the stage floor, and effortlessly raises herself onto her knees. The crowd of ravenous men throw singles of 20s, 50s and 100s at her.

Adrian's brows raise, appalled. 

Gracefully, she gets back on her feet and snaps off her g-string, tossing it to the side. Her mound is completely shaven.

The sudden exposure takes Adrian aback. The cat-calls and slurred barks she gets from this club, packed with predators, makes his stomach churn.

Men are grabbing at her. She looks uncomfortable, but plays it off that she's being coy, avoiding them as they take swings at her ankles.

Adrian's seething, and it only escalates.

" _Once I had a love and it was a gas, soon turned out to be a pain in the ass. Seemed like the real thing only to find, mucho mistrust, love's gone behind.._."

Alex dances smoothly, as if its second nature to her, rubbing her breasts and shaking her head to the throbbing drums and slick guitar riffs that back Blondie's lovesick track. She gets back on her knees and shakes her ass again, blond hair flinging around with fake passion.

Everything changes when a drunk businessman, paunchy and in his mid-50s, grabs a handful of her ass, squeezes, digging his dirty nails into her creamy flesh. Her eyes widen.

"You like that, slut? Does that feel good?"

He slaps her ass, _hard_. It sounds like it's going to leave an ugly bruise.

"Shit," Dan breathes. He knows what's coming next.

Faster than a bullet, Alex swings her leg from her crouching position and cracks the guy in the jaw with her cheap gold stiletto. It may be cheap, but it's heavy, and it hurts. He flails, blood spurting from his bulbous ruddy nose and sweaty lips, and falls back into the front row of black, tufted arm chairs. People gasp and scream and begin to flee as the violence unfolds.

The man gathers himself and takes a swing at Alex, nailing her in the cheek, but she recovers.

Adrian goes to help, but Dan stops him and gives him a look. _She can handle it._

Alex is on the busted-up sap in seconds, punching him. His head bobs and he shrieks.

She pins him to the floor, grabbing the gore-slick collar of his button-up so they're face-to-face, leaning into his crotch with the point of her stiletto. The man's suited cronies huddle around him and Alex in horror and shock, not quite sure what to do. 

" _Lost inside, adorable illusion and I cannot hide, I'm the one you're using, please don't push me aside_..."

The young woman slugs him again. The punch breaks his nose—and perhaps a few teeth—with a sickening _crack_.

"You like _this_?" She snarls, further pressing her stiletto into his crotch, eliciting a quivering whimper that's gurgling with blood. It collapses into a torrent of sobs. He's probably bleeding down there. "You like that? Does that feel _good_?"

Before she can deliver another deathly blow, Alex is being pried off the bloody pulp of a man by the two bouncers. She doesn't give up without a fight, though—she strikes the first bouncer, hard, in the gut, and roundhouse kicks him in the jaw. He's down for the count, and she pounces on the second one.

She's wailing on the second bouncer for a while before two more swarm her. They swoop in and grab her from behind, wrangling the young woman into their brawny arms. Blood is splattered on Alex's face and across her breasts and stomach.

Adrian looks pointedly at Dan and Rorschach as the bouncers haul Alex to the back room. Rorschach looks back at Adrian.

"You taught her," the vigilante shrugs. "Told you. Could get ugly."

—

"This is the last fucking time, Alex. You're gone."

Tears sting behind the young woman's eyes. Her mascara and eyeshadow are smudged into a weird, sweaty concoction of gold and black, and sacs of fatigue hang under her eyes. She's fully dressed, now, back in her torn cutoff jeans and black combat boots. She wears a weathered black moto jacket that hangs on her frame over an oversized shirt that reads _Nazi Punks Fuck Off_. 

She looks at Quentin, owner of The Cat Club. He's chubby, balding, and has the thickest Staten Island accent Alex has ever heard. He's slimy and has scars from a Chelsea Grin he got in Brownsville as a teenager. She can see his patchy, curly body hair through the openings in his shirt where the buttons strain under his weight. He reeks of body odor and copper.

"He grabbed me," Alex snaps, eyes sore from the blaring white overhead lights that illuminate the back office, "and you blame me for it? I was just doing my job."

"No, you weren't. Your job is to get out there and shake that ass and make those fucking cokeheads happy," he barks at her. "Not to attack the clients. This is, what? The third time this has happened? And I've covered for you, every time."

"He assaulted me. You think I'm going to just let that go?"

"I don't give a shit about what he did," Quentin says gruffly. "You better be happy he chose not to press charges, or you'd be deeper in the hole than you already are."

"He shouldn't be touching me, or any of the other girls."

"He and his crew spend thousands here every weekend. He runs half this city. You know who he's involved with," Quentin growls. "I'd let him hit the back of you on the floor of this fucking office if that meant saving my hide."

Alex feels her cheeks flush. She feels dirty at the thought.

"Give me another chance," she hates begging this sleaze-bag, but she has no other choice. She needs this job. "I acted on impulse. That's all."

She feels gross. Eight years ago, before the Keene Act, she would've dropped this son-of-a-bitch down an elevator shaft for treating women like this. 

But that was a long time ago.

"Alex, honey," his slimy voice coils around her name like a snake. "You're a bad bitch. They all love you out there, you know that. Your tits and your pussy bring in the big bucks. You're our top earner. I won't discredit you there."

Alex sighs, waits for the _but_.

"But when you nearly drop-kick a highly influential client into the next decade, it ain't gonna work for me. Bad publicity. Now fuckin' scram."

Alex blinks back the tears that glass over her dark orbs. She's trembling. She clenches her fist.

Quentin pauses and looks up at her with a steely glare.

—

Alex is thrown out of the back alley exit by one of the bouncers. She nearly trips as she stumbles into the rainy night. She regains her footing and races back towards the door as it closes.

"Fuck you!" she screams as the door slams in her face, her hoarse voice reverberating through the dark, trash-ridden alley. She slams her fist against the black metal door.

The lock clicks and she's alone in the dark.

Her chest heaves up and down sporadically as her mind races at _how she's going to afford rent, or bills, or food or_ —and she knows she's on the verge of hysterics. A whimper escapes her throat. She's about to burst into a torrent of exhausted tears when she hears the faintest footstep to her left. 

She whips around, ready to fight.

"You've got to be kidding me," she scoffs, dropping her fists with a frown when spots the three men approaching her. She freezes when she locks eyes with Adrian. 

_Fuck._

She feels the blood rushing from her face.

It's been eight years.

Eight years of never really getting over him, but having to live in the same city as him. Eight years of seeing the grandiose skyscraper—illuminating the sky with purple light from the _Veidt Enterprises_ sign—from her near-condemned apartment every night. Eight years of switching the station every time a Veidt ad pops up on TV. Eight years of crossing the street so she doesn't have to walk past a newsstand and see his face on nearly every magazine, from _Forbes_ to _Rolling Stone._

Eight. fucking. years.

She is convinced, now, that she will never get rid of Adrian Veidt—like a faded splotch of red wine on a white dress. Impossible to get rid of completely, always lingering, a haunting reminder of happier nights that lurk in the past.

"Alex," Adrian starts, coming towards her.

She cuts him off, "How much did you...?" 

The three men say nothing.

"Dan?"

Dan raises his brows at her, pity in his expression. "Well..."

Adrian sighs deeply.

The young woman looks furious and humiliated, the apples of her cheeks burning red. The thought of Adrian, of all people, seeing her like that—it makes her want to shrivel up and die. She turns to take aim at the masked vigilante that flanks the group.

"Rorschach," she bites at him, "why would you tell them? Why would you bring them here?"

"Important," he grumbles. "Something you need to know."

"You couldn't have just dropped by my apartment? What's so urgent that you brought half the squad with you?" she says. Her eyes flicker to Adrian, taking in his styled hair and expensive coat and Italian silk tie. "What's so urgent that you brought Boy Wonder?"

Adrian rolls his eyes. "Good to see you too."

"Wish I could say the same. A little out of your depth around here, don't you think?" she says. She tips her chin, considering him, then jerks her thumb in the opposite direction. "Studio 54's that way."

"Christ," he sighs. "Here we go."

"How noble of you to descend from your penthouse to walk among us vermin," she quips.

"Alex," Adrian says, giving her a look. "Now wait for a second—"

"Why are you even here?" She snarls at him. "Don't you have a board meeting or a photo shoot to go to or something?"

Dan raises his brows. She's angrier than he thought she'd be.

"You don't always have to be so combative," Adrian responds.

"I'm combative?" she bites at him. "You're the one who comes here, uninvited, and starts—"

"We're here to help you," Adrian informs her curtly, brow quirked. "And from the looks of it, you need it."

 _Oh._ That strikes a nerve.

The young woman stops and swallows thickly. She looks hurt at his words. Adrian immediately regrets it, but he knows he's right.

Alex knows he's right.

"I don't need your _help_ ," she lies, spitting out the last word. 

Adrian can't help himself. He's still seething from what he witnessed a half-hour earlier.

"Clearly you do," the blond says. "What I saw in there—"

"I was doing my job," she says.

"Your job?" Adrian scoffs.

"Yeah, my _job_ ," she snaps. "Not all of us are sellouts, Adrian."

Dan shakes his head and sighs deeply. Rorschach watches them bicker without a word.

"You don't have to do this," he says. "There are other jobs out there. You used to want to do things that weren't _this_. What happened?"

"What happened?" Alex echoes him, stifling a bitter laugh. "I spent years with _you_ , dressing up in a costume and fighting crime and trying to better this world. I had no time to do anything else or prepare for life after that."

Adrian gives her a pointed look.

Alex gestures to the three of them. "I don't know anybody but goddamn superheroes."

"So you settle for this?" Adrian says, livid.

"I like doing it," Alex lies again.

Adrian knows she's lying—and so does Dan and Rorschach. It's no secret that the once-vibrant, young vigilante has fallen on hard times since the Keene Act passed. They know she wishes they were still a team fighting injustice.

She's a bitter, disillusioned shell of her former self, going through the motions as nostalgia plagues her every thought.

She's happy the three of them are there. She just wouldn't ever admit it.

"What? Are you embarrassed?" She asks. "Worried your investors or the press will find out about me and what I do? You afraid I'll make you look bad?" 

"That's not what I'm saying," he says patiently. "Don't talk like that."

"That's exactly what you're saying, Adrian," she says.

"What I just saw was concerning. _That's_ what I'm saying."

"Look," she says, her voice on the verge of tears. "I'm just trying to live a normal life."

Adrian raises his brows briefly. This irritates him.

"That's what you're doing? Living a normal life?" Adrian says, gesturing to the club. "You're okay with all those disgusting men grabbing at you and talking to you that way?"

"Lots of men try to grab me," Alex snaps. "It's part of the job."

"That's not part of the job," Adrian scoffs. "Have a little self-respect."

"Oh, so now you mind that I go nude?" Alex says. "You didn't seem to mind eight years ago when I was going nude for you."

"How can you even compare the two? We were together," Adrian says. "Now you're doing it in front of strangers on a stage in the slums, and you're getting grabbed and attacked for it. Of course, I mind."

"I'm _fine_."

"You didn't look fine," Adrian says.

"Don't do that," Alex says irritably. "You always do that. I held my own in there and you know it."

"Guys," Dan says quietly, trying to prompt an end to the argument. He's let it go far enough. Not a good idea to let it boil over.

"All I know is that you were just assaulted and you just lost your job because of it."

Alex stops, feels her cheeks turn crimson.

"I'm not a charity case that you can toss your Veidt Enterprises checkbook at," she snarls. "I'm fine on my own. I don't need anybody or anything."

"I think you do," Adrian says. 

"Fuck you," Alex spits out the words like they're poison on her lips. "You don't get to dictate what's good for me and what isn't. I haven't seen you in eight years and you think you can just come here and judge me and tell me off because of how I make a living? How dare you admonish me. I'm not your child!"

" ** _Guys_**."

"No, but I care about you enough to tell you that this isn't okay," Adrian retorts, gesturing to her smudged makeup and throbbing, bruised cheek. "You're lucky that's all I'm doing."

Eight years ago, Adrian would have killed that scumbag that grabbed her.

But that was a long time ago.

"If you can't handle it," the young woman steps up to the blond's broad frame, looking up at him, "then you shouldn't have come."

Alex knows Adrian would drop her in a second if they fought—after all, he's the one who taught her everything she knows.

She's a good fighter and knows how to hold her own, but not against him. The entire time they were partners and trained together, she was never able to beat him. He towers over her at 6'2, dwarfing her 5'3 frame. He's the smartest man in the world, and the quickest—"fast enough to catch a bullet," he used to tell her—but none of that hinders Alex.

Despite the dejection glittering in her eyes, she hasn't lost her spunk. Adrian adores that about her. Always did.

"Alright, alright," Dan steps forward and breaks it up, getting between them. "Enough, you two. We don't need to be fighting amongst ourselves right now." 

Alex turns from Adrian to look at Dan. Worry plagues her soft features when she asks, "What does that mean?"

Rorschach flicks something at her, catching Alex off-guard. She fumbles but catches it, turning it over in her palms. It's the smiley face pin she knows all too well. A thin splatter of blood reaches across the yellow. 

That's new.

"Why are you giving me this?" she asks quietly. She knows what Rorschach is going to say before he says it.

"The Comedian's dead," he rasps out, cold and unfeeling.

Dan looks at Rorschach and mumbles sardonically, "Nice bedside manner."

Adrian shifts his eyes to Alex, gauging her reaction.

A sickening feeling of grief swells in her chest. She's been on the verge of tears the entire time and has to actively bite the soft, pink inner wall of her cheek to hold them back.

A shuddering breath empties from her lungs as she looks up from the bloody badge to her former comrade. "What?"

"Thrown from his high-rise," Rorschach explains. 

"Christ," she says softly, and Adrian can hear the lump forming in her throat. "Why? Why would someone kill him?"

Dan sighs, half-shrugging his limp shoulders. "He made a lot of enemies over the years."

"The man was practically a Nazi," Adrian mutters.

Alex scowls at Adrian. If looks could kill, he'd be dead.

"You never liked him," Alex says to Adrian bitterly. 

"I thought we were going to be gentle about this?" Dan says, giving Adrian and Rorschach a sideways look.

"Someone's picking off costumed heroes," Rorschach asserts, ignoring Dan's failed attempts at peacekeeping. "Somebody knows who did it. Somebody knows."

"You—you think one of us is next?" Alex asks. There's distinct fear in her tone.

Adrian looks irked at Rorschach's theory. He doesn't dismiss it, though. His eyes settle on the young woman and he furrows his brows. His tone is soft and concerned when he addresses her. "There are more important things to be worried about right now."

"Are you saying we shouldn't be worried?" Alex looks up at him.

"No," Adrian tells her. "Just... be careful."

A few tears escape Alex's eyes but she hastily wipes them away with the back of her palm.

The Comedian is, of all things, a problematic figure in her life—his aggressive disposition and bleak view of things never sits well with people. She hasn't seen him in months, but fondly recalls advice he gave her in the past, the way he used to sling his arm around her shoulders, the way he called her "kid" as he puffed on a fat cigar.

He could be... well, he could be The Comedian, but Alex looks up to him.

Used to, anyway.

The thought of him, splayed out, bones broken and twisted in a growing puddle of crimson on a dirty Manhattan sidewalk—the thought that he's no longer around—feels like a punch in the gut.


End file.
